The Unexpected Gift
by The Crazy Breadstick
Summary: After having a glorious birthday party, George goes to the shop to make sure it is properly closed before discoving a gift from his peculiar friend that he met at a dark time in his life...


**_Hi! Ok, so this is my first Harry Potter fanfiction and oneshot ever and I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about it, but I do hope you'll enjoy it all! It's in honor of George Weasley's birthday which is TODAY! YAY! Ahem..._**

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. That belongs to J. K. Rowling._**

**_Claimer: I will say that I do own Darren, so beat that! Adele is also one of my dearest friend's OC, and I used Adele with her permission._**

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><p><em>Dear Gregory Weasley,<em>

_I do apologize deeply for not attending your most likely lovely birthday party. I had matters to attend to with my beloved Adele. I wish you a happy birthday and I do hope that this gift will make up for my absence. Please do take care of him properly. Death is a hard man to bargain with._

_Sincerely,_

_Daegmund Who Everlast_

After reading the quickly written, yet extremely neat little card that was written in stylish gold ink about fifteen times, I finally set it down and stared at the "gift" in front of me. I was slightly bewildered and wasn't quite sure what to think. A gift from Daegmund Who Everlast was always an interesting thing. If you thought I gave weird gifts, then you've never gotten a gift from Daegmund; Or Darren, as he likes to be called now-a-days. From what the odd wizard has told me, he had changed it a couple centuries or so ago.

I had been having a very good time at my birthday party, actually. Being surrounded by the family I never really got to see much of because of all their various fields of work, most were in the Ministry and others were out of country, had been nice. My wife, Angelina, had tried to throw a surprise party for my birthday, but that didn't work of course. I was, after all, one who could always find out something if I wanted too. And I did find out of course. But, rather than ruin something she had been so set out to do, I didn't mention a word about it and acted completely surprised when they all yelled "Surprise!" coming out of various hiding places in my living room. I was actually quite surprised, because so many people were there! My mum and dad were there, which I had expected, along with Harry and Ginny and their three kids, James II, Albus, and Lily, Ron and Hermonie with their two children, Rose and Hugo, Percy and Audrey had Molly II and Lucy, Bill and Fleur were here also with Victoire, Dominique, and Louis, and Charlie too along with my own wife of course, and our kids Fred II and Roxanne! I was happy to see many of my other friends were there too.

"Angelina, you really outdid yourself."

With a smile, Angelina gave me a kiss on the cheek with a small "you're welcome" and the party began, full of liveliness, presents, cake, and other bizarre and fun happenings. Which included a few drunken people and random dancing along with some great fireworks. If Fred was alive, he would have surely loved it.

If Fred was alive… I didn't want to think about his death right now. Of course, I thought of my brother all the time and I cared for him… but today wasn't a time I wanted to be sad. I wanted to be happy. For Fred, I had to stay strong still. What would he say if I didn't? Surely if I had let Fred's death haunt me forever the shop would be nothing but remnants of a short lived dream, I wouldn't be with Angelina, most likely divorced, and perhaps I'd be a drunken mess. If not for Darren, I surely would have been a ruined man.

This brought me back to the topic at hand. I had come to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes to make sure everything was securely closed up before going home to my family to find this odd little present and the note from my unique friend. Meeting Darren had been purely accident. It had been a couple years after Fred's death and after having a fight with Angelina, I had resorted to storming out of the house angrily and wondering of to a neighboring wizarding town whose name deludes me to drink fire whiskey and forget my trouble. And then, I found myself in an alley, in the pouring rain, sitting on the ground with my back against the wall, drinking my life away. That's when he appeared.

_"Why do you sit out here in an alleyway drinking fire whiskey in the pouring rain, Weasley? Do you wish you catch cold?" The deep and very masculine voice that suddenly manifested itself startled me, my head snapping up to look at the man who spoke to me._

_Looming above me was one of the oddest and intimidating looking men I have ever seen. He was extremely tall from what I could tell from where I was sitting, seemingly fit and muscular, rather pale also. He was clad in leather, to say the least, wearing what looked like spiked, steel toed, leather-belted combat boots, black leather pants (that wasn't tight like you might think), a white button up shirt with a popped collar, the first few buttons undone to reveal his chest, a leather jacket over it, with a popper collar also, black fingerless leather gloves, and a belted leather cape or cloak (I couldn't tell), to top it off. He also wore two cross necklaces, one upside down while the other seemed a bit Celtic. He had deep indigo hair, his bangs falling in front of his face and his long hair pulled back into a low pony tail. I couldn't see his face very well, but those dark golden eyes that seemed to bore into my soul was certainly notice able. _

_Startled, I reached for wand swiftly in case he was going to do hex me or curse me, but he just raised a small hand. "I mean you no harm Weasley. If anyone is going to harm you, it's yourself." He reassured in a monotone voice, yet warned rather bluntly._

_Those words shocked me. Harm myself? Why would I harm myself? It had crossed my mind __**once**__, but that was it. This guy made me uneasy, even if he said he wasn't going to harm me._

_"What do you mean that I'm the only one who's going to hurt myself?" I snapped, tossing my bottle aside and standing. How dare he even suggest it! _

_I pointed my wand at his neck, oddly rather violent; Most likely from the whiskey. However, he wasn't intimidated in the slightest, only staring at me with eyes that taunted me, challenging me to even try casting a deadly curse or hex at him, yet he somehow knew I wouldn't. Raising his hand, he pushed my wand away from his throat, calm as before._

"_You're out here in the freezing rain, drinking carelessly. You're only harming yourself." He repeated. _

_I still glared at him angrily, glancing at the broken bottle of fire whiskey before I realized after a few moments longer that he was right. I was only harming myself. I put my wand away, rather ashamed I had threatened a man who seemed to be only trying to help. What was wrong with me? I had left home after fighting with my sweet Angelina, drank until I was stupid drunk, and then threatened an innocent man. I turned away from the dark man, my back to him, staring at the ground._

"_I'm sorry…" I apologized. What else could I say? I had just threatened his life after all. Yet he seemed to not be angered by that fact at all._

"_I understand, Weasley..." Was all the young man, who I realized must only be about nineteen or so, said to my very short apology._

After that, I'm not really sure how it happened, but we ended up sitting in that dark alley in the rain on a cold October night, and I spilled everything to the stranger. I told him who I was, what I did for a living, what was going wrong in my life, and about my twin, Fred. I recall he didn't speak once, listening to what I said before saying something I never forgot.

"_Your life has been a rough one; that much is obvious. You could not control what happened in the war, or your brother's death. It was out of your hands. Don't blame yourself for it. Don't blame anyone. But, think about what your brother would want. Would Fredrick want you to destroy your life over your distress for him? No. He would not. He would want his brother to be strong and to live on. That's what he would want of you. Go home, hug your wife, tell her how much you love her, do the same to your children and the next day, begin anew and be a strong man who can run Weasley's Wizard Wheezes successfully and be a man whose a loving husband and caring father."_

And with that, the mysterious man that I would come to know as Darren had disappeared from my life for the next five years until he appeared randomly while I was closing shop, wanting to know if I was living for myself. Oddly enough, he didn't look like he had even aged a day, but at the time I hadn't asked him any questions about it and I told him how I had done what he said and pulled my act together.

To say the least, my acquaintance was pleased and an unlikely friendship blossomed. I eventually found out my friend's name and that he was a very ancient wizard, one who was simply cursed to live a long existence until his father wished for him to take his place. I had asked what he had meant, but he never answered. He told me stories that I could not believe at first, of many wizards that I had only read about and how there had been a war way back in the first hundred years after Hogwarts had been founded, against what was known simply then as Dark wizards and Light wizards. He never got into many details except to say that he was proud to see the Weasleys were as strong as they had been back then. After a time, I also found out that he was also in love, with one he said was his true love, and that she was much like him, yet much more fragile. I found out that Darren was a complex man and quite a lonely god of sorts, yet reassured me that over time he had gained some immortal trustworthy friends.

I looked over the little note once again, before sighing. Darren worked in mysterious ways. I would never understand how this came to be. My gaze finally rested on my "gift" again, a small smile on my face. A cute ginger haired baby, maybe about a year or so old, lay curled up and sleeping in a basket, wrapped up in a baby blue blanket on the table. He was sleeping quite soundly. A red ribbon was attached to his left ankle with a card that had a "My name is:" sticker on it, the name written in golden letters.

**Hello! My name is:**

_Frederick Weasley the First_

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><p><em><strong>So how was it? Good? Bad? I'd love to know what you think, so review!<strong>_


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